Day 1: Travel

Greetings to all, and Happy Mother’s Day! I thanked my mom for all the wonderful things she has done for me by taking her to the Cheesecake Factory in Charlotte and then flying halfway around the world.

Actually, we had a very nice celebration with some herb crusted salmon, potatoes, broccoli, and of course, cheesecake.

Today is the day I leave for Europe for my second study abroad with the Walker College of Business. [For those of you who are just now joining, I am going to three countries in the Alps with the MBA program.] After lunch, we headed over to Charlotte-Douglas International Airport (CLT), where Mom and Dad dropped me off, said good bye, and left me to fight the TSA and overcrowded terminals.

I made it through TSA security surprisingly painlessly, and headed down to Terminal A to catch my flight to Washington-Dulles International Airport (IAD). Our flight was late taking off, and encountered a lot of turbulence, but we made it safely inside IAD around 16:30EST. I guess the 0.5oz of complimentary “flavored snack mix” made up for the turbulence and delays.

We had to rush across the airport <side note> IAD is absolutely huge and is probably about 2 miles long—in a perfectly straight line—from one gate to another </side note> in order to make our connecting flight to Geneva. We boarded our plane, a Boeing 767, sometime around 17:00EST, and took off closer to 17:30EST.

Following another entire half-ounce of flavored snack mix, the United attendants served dinner about an hour and a half into the flight. Dinner consisted of some kind of ravioli-like pasta (which I would describe as edible), a salad—consisting of exactly four pieces of spinach and some weird stuff I didn’t recognize (which I would describe as inedible), one very cold dinner roll, and a small container of “Villa Dulce Salted Caramel Gelato” (which wasn’t half bad, and had a cool little spoon built in under the lid).

I finished my gelato (I would like to emphasize that there are 2 a’s in caramel) and began to write my blog post. When we arrive in Geneva (GVA), it will be around 01:20EST and 07:20 in Geneva, so it will be like starting our day after pulling an all-nighter. Once we get our luggage, we will transfer to Chamonix and begin our first day in the Alps!

I believe I’m going to try to get some sleep on the plane. Goodnight everyone, and thanks for following my travels.